I went to the inaugural steampunk symposium, Seattle Steam-Con today with Carter, Tim and Kevin. As a crew we were probably not ideal demographic for this event, but it was still fun. Carter digs the steampunk in the abstract, but hasn’t really read any of works yet. He just really likes the crazy clockwork weapons and outfits. Tim has probably read the most steampunk fiction of the 4 of us. I liked have read The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling and enjoyed it, but I don’t think that makes me “into” steampunk. Kevin likes to take pictures.
None of us were dressed up for the even, which put us very far into the minority at the event. Add to that Kevin and I were walking around shooting photos with our DSLR’s and we were feeling a little out of place.
As this was the first Steamcon I have to cut the organizers a little (lot) of slack. They did a good job of getting a decent number of guests (Tim Powers, Paul Guinan, and Abney Park), having a lot of panels, and just getting a convention off the ground. That said, the venue, the Seattle Airport Marriott was probably not the ideal location. A little cramped, the panels were all standing room only, but I supposed that is probably a good thing for the panelists. It would certainly suck to stand in front of a room of 4 people.
The biggest initial roadblock for us was just registering, they closed down the online preregistration several days ago so we had to buy our tickets this morning. Knowing how messed registration can be (PAX, Emerald City, SakuraCon have all sucked in the past) we arrived 45 minutes early. We were about 40 people back and it still took 2 hours to get a badge. I’m sure they will figure this out next year. The line behind us was massive so feel bad for the people who showed up after us. And the single day passes sold out later this morning.
On the plus side, some of the outfits were really amazing. The people really put a lot work into their Mad Scientist Victorian Garb. We saw a lot of Leather, Copper, Feathers, Bowlers and Girdles. Had I put a little work into making an outfit I wouldn’t have felt so odd about taking photos of people. Kevin and I were a little timid about taking photos. Live and learn.
Next year I promise to wear a pith helmet if they promise to speed up the registration process. Nice work SteamCon.
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